Even If Flowers Bloom on a Broken Branch - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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8.
The Side-dish Kitchen was, quite literally, in a state of emergency.
To entertain the precious guests who had suddenly rushed in, Lady Han and the servants ran around until their feet practically smoked, and for the first time in a long while, fires were lit in every single hearth, causing the cauldron lids to rattle against the hot steam.
So, with a hint of apology in her heart, Lee Yeon offered them some refreshments before slipping back to her own quarters.
‘How can my heart leaving be so completely different from my heart entering?’
Earlier, she had firmly resolved herself, wondering how she should tell her father about this matter, what she would do if he flew into a rage, and that she would have no right to complain even if he scolded her harshly. It was with such a heavy heart that she had stepped over this threshold, but now she had returned with a much lighter burden.
‘I received permission.’
Not only did she receive permission to marry out, but she had even heard him personally ask her marriage partner to take good care of her.
Perhaps because she felt relieved that everything had passed more safely than expected, a laugh slipped out somehow.
‘Or maybe it’s just because it’s so absurd.’
Even thinking about it again made her dizzy.
A line of sturdy men stepping over that threshold one after another, each holding a red box in his hands—she had never seen that many bridal gifts even before her Regression.
Lee Yeon pressed her forehead and shook her head side to side.
‘Maybe it’s a good thing they’re all frantically busy.’
If they weren’t, she might have been caught in their grasp and exhausted for a while by demands to look at the gifts, requests to know what on earth happened, and pleas to tell the story in detail.
‘Though I will have to tell Lady Han and Haengrang-abeom.’
For some reason, she felt like Chohee and Jain were suffering in her stead, making the back of her neck sting a little.
Lee Yeon absentmindedly looked at the side table and faced the mirror placed upon it. To be precise, her own reflection within it.
Out of habit, her eyes, which were tracing down her braided hair, landed on the white nape of her neck reflected in the mirror. It was just below her collarbone, where a slightly red mark still remained.
“!!”
Lee Yeon reflexively reached out and covered her neck. But there was no way it would be hidden by that. Furthermore, there were several other marks besides that one. Many of them were beneath her neatly braided tresses, and also along the line leading from her collarbone to her shoulder.
“Did this just…….”
Did this mean it was visible to everyone’s eyes?
If so, did they see it—both her father and that man?
With a stunned gaze, Lee Yeon’s eyes, which were tracing down her own body in the mirror, faltered at her chest.
Right now, it was hidden away, tightly knotted, but last night, it had been covered by a different hand. Without a shred of shame.
‘Normally, doing up my hair as a married woman should come later.’
Hot lips had hovered by her ear, melting her body into compliance. The memories of last night rushed into Lee Yeon’s mind like a fog.
‘Shall we consider it a down payment?’
She had protested, asking who on earth pays a down payment with their body, but she had nothing to say to that mouth that replied, ‘Anything.’
‘You agreed to no deadline, and you agreed to the conditions. Then only emotion and necessity should remain; if a man doesn’t feel moved when he gains such a beautiful wife, is he even a man?’
It was hands down not something done in front of a courtesan house’s stone wall.
Grand Prince Jinyul’s quarters were not far from there, and it was none other than Lee Yeon who had requested to go there.
‘I need a token.’
Evidence that our promise will not be broken, a token that this current action is not an impulse, and something that he wouldn’t dare cancel even if he were to show a whim later on.
Therefore, with Chohee, Jain, and Cheonjisinmyeong as witnesses, they held a contract just between the two of them.
Placing a single white bowl on a small table, they filled it to the brim with water.
‘It’s a bit ridiculous at this point, but let me ask you one thing.’
Was it because his intoxication had faded, or because he had been curious all along? As if his mind had cleared upon entering his own home, Jinyul spoke to Lee Yeon.
Ever since he referred to her as his wife, his tone had become respectful. That made it even more ticklish, causing the earlobes of Lee Yeon, who sat across from Jinyul, to turn red.
‘Why did you make such a proposal to me?’
There were many people who admired the Seo Clan. There were not a few who respected Seo Yeo-ro, and there must have been someone who secretly harbored feelings for the lady of a great family. However, although Jinyul was born of noble blood, danger was also constantly pressing against his throat.
‘Did you think about what happens after I die?’
To Jinyul, who asked so mischievously, Lee Yeon replied calmly.
‘If Your Grace meets death, I, as your wife, will also not be able to remain safe, so I have no intention of letting you go on that long journey alone. It is just.’
Lee Yeon looked at him.
To be precise, she looked at his face in her memory, the one that had firmly gripped her hand while calling her name.
‘I thought there was no one else but Your Grace.’
The only person Jin평 would not dare tell to break off the marriage, someone whom anyone would have no choice but to acknowledge as Lee Yeon’s husband, and a man to whom Lee Yeon could give her heart.
However, she could not say that exactly as it was, so Lee Yeon deliberately raised her head haughtily.
‘My standards happen to be exceptionally high.’
At her clear face, which seemed to say that was all there was to it, Jinyul let out a chuckle.
Jinyul gazed at Lee Yeon intently. The two servants had excused themselves, saying they would look around the vicinity, so only Lee Yeon and Jinyul remained in the room.
‘She boldly requested marriage, but she is someone who was born and raised as a lady of a precious household, and the only men she has ever encountered are her father and the servants.’
Lee Yeon was so nervous just from sitting across from him at the table that she couldn’t even part her lips. The fingertips that were pulling at her innocent skirt-hem were exceedingly white. Yet, she was asking for a token that he wouldn’t break his word, so he couldn’t help but find her both intriguing and cute.
Therefore, Jinyul intended to stop teasing her at about that point.
‘Should I call it an honor?’
And it was right when he reached his hand toward the water bowl. Slender fingers reaching out from across touched the space between Jinyul’s index and middle fingers, as if intertwining with them.
Was it because of her ice-cold body temperature, or because her frame was more delicate than he thought? When Jinyul reflexively faltered, Lee Yeon, who had been in contact with him, also startled and withdrew her hand.
Lee Yeon’s face turned a little red. No, was it the candlelight reflecting on her pale face?
‘That, the promise is enough. The promise that you will come find me tomorrow, I will accept only that.’
Saying so, Lee Yeon placed her hands on the floor and awkwardly raised her body.
‘Surely Your Grace wouldn’t break a promise made to a woman. If you do, I will be as good as dead.’
It was just as Lee Yeon was turning around, carrying an implausible threat to the very end. Jinyul’s arm reached out from across the table and caught her skirt-hem.
‘Even if you are leaving, you should leave after.’
It wasn’t that great of a force.
It was a slight restraint, to the extent that it didn’t even leave a crease on the skirt-hem he held, but Lee Yeon could not move, as if her ankles had been caught.
‘We should finish what we were doing before you go.’
‘—!!’
Having sat back down in bewilderment, Lee Yeon’s body momentarily swayed. It was because Jinyul had grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward himself.
Her body’s balance, which had fallen helplessly due to the unexpected pull, was barely caught only after she bumped into something.
Lee Yeon’s eyelashes trembled violently.
‘You wished for a promise, didn’t you.’
Lips that felt as if they were glued together moved on their own. It wasn’t that she moved them. As the overlapping lips shaped the words, they simply moved together.
The tip of his tongue, which had briefly emerged between his teeth, brushed against Lee Yeon’s lips. The place where the soft and hot thing touched flared up, causing Lee Yeon’s shoulders to flinch.
Jinyul wrapped his palm around those round, small shoulders and slowly moved his lips. As they pressed their mouths together so closely that it felt like he would inhale even the breath inside her lips, Lee Yeon could not find a place to put her hands.
When she leaned against the table, it swayed as if the water bowl would flip over. As she found herself leaning against Jinyul as if embraced before she knew it, Lee Yeon’s ears flushed a deep red.
‘Yo-Your Grace—’
‘I told you that anything is possible if I wish for it.’
She could feel his hot breath. Not just his shoulders, but his entire body in contact with hers was burning hot. It wasn’t coercive, but it was a situation she couldn’t refuse, causing Lee Yeon’s pupils to tremble helplessly.
“……!!”
Before long, the tongue that had entered her mouth slowly brushed against her even rows of teeth and invaded further inside.
Jinyul found Lee Yeon’s tongue, which was hiding deep within, and gently entangled and pulled it. He sought it relentlessly and deeply, as if refusing to allow her even a moment to part her lips when she grew short of breath.
Lee Yeon’s mind grew distant at the kiss that felt like it was melting her body. Instead of words, a wet sound filled the room.
‘Ha, haah.’
It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about this kind of situation. She knew that anything could happen while being alone in a room with a man, and furthermore, since she was the one who proposed marriage, she had entered thinking she would steel herself for anything—
‘Yo-Your Grace.’
Before Lee Yeon could even properly catch her breath, their lips overlapped once more.
Lee Yeon placed her hands on Jinyul’s shoulders and turned her head. Due to the heat, the sweetness, and the slight scent of alcohol emanating from Jinyul’s body, her head spun and her body tingled all over.
She had been a bit careless. Because the Jinyul she knew had been endlessly cautious, polite, and restrained around her.
But that was merely a man looking at ‘his older brother’s wife.’ Now that there was no restraint whatsoever, it was different. Lee Yeon realized this keenly as she experienced it with her body.
‘—Ah!’
Jinyul’s lips had already skimmed past Lee Yeon’s shoulder and collarbone, heading down toward her chest.
His hand lightly traced down Lee Yeon’s body beneath her chest-wrapper. The hand that softly caressed the curves of her body gradually moved downward.
‘Hngh!’
At the unfamiliar sensation, Lee Yeon’s body trembled faintly. As if surprised by the exclamation that slipped from her own mouth, her face flushed a deep red.
Even so, Lee Yeon did not push Jinyul away, nor did she back down. Holding Lee Yeon close, Jinyul, who was tracing her prominent collarbone with his tongue, let out a small laugh.
As if this would suffice for the time being.
‘Though I am very thirsty.’
Using his fingertips, he gathered the water pooling on the table and let it trickle onto Lee Yeon’s collarbone. And as he drank that pooled water with the tip of his tongue, he looked up at Lee Yeon.
‘For now, I shall be satisfied with this.’
The place where his knee had touched flared with an aching heat.
Jinyul laughed slightly as he held Lee Yeon, who couldn’t even balance properly, with both hands to help her stand. It was a gaze that was playful, yet somehow deep.
‘Then I shall see you tomorrow, wife.’
That was all.
The overlapping of lips, and the traces he left on this neck, arm, and chest. Her purity was still intact, and nothing more had happened.
But.
“…….”
What should she do about this carnal desire she had already come to know?
Having awakened late to a sensation she hadn’t known until her death, Lee Yeon covered her flushed face with both hands.
She was in big trouble.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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